As I race toward decrepitude, my interaction with the healthcare system will increase, thus raising my awareness of its many faults. At this point, I am lucky to only have to see the doctor once a year for a physical. I have had occasional injuries in the past, but none of those required more than a single visit. Even so, the lunacy of the healthcare system is obvious even at this stage of my life.
The thing about the system is that it works to the interest of everyone except the patients, but we insist on calling it private healthcare. There is nothing private about it as every aspect is controlled by corporate interests, which both advance and direct government interests in the system. If you want to understand fascist economics, spend some time in the American healthcare system.
Something I did not mention in the show is that a sizable chunk of what passes for healthcare is either unnecessary or not healthcare. The legions of bureaucrats and functionaries that serve only the interest of the system are a great example of Pournelle’s iron law of bureaucracy. The system is an upside-down pyramid with the doctors and nurses at the bottom.
It is hard to see how this system survives the great wave of baby boomer retirement and the wave of demographic change. A highly complex system operated by low-IQ people is doomed due to that mismatch, but throw in the tens of millions of old people demanding services and collapse is the only possible outcome. The Covid response was a glimpse of how bad things will get in the next decade.
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This Week’s Show
Contents
- An Unhinged Rant About Healthcare
Direct Download, The iTunes, Google Play, iHeart Radio, RSS Feed
Full Show On Spreaker
Full Show On Rumble
Full Show On Odysee
I have worked in US medical schools for over 20 years. The accreditation process for such schools has been completely hijacked by measures of “student satisfaction.” That is not the same as education. Further, the students aren’t supposed to have to do anything on their own. Everything is to be pushed out to them: research opportunities, externships, library resources, gym programs, and so forth. When, and how often, these resources are pushed out to the students must then be documented, or it didn’t happen for accreditors. There can be absolutely no reports of student mistreatment by the faculty, and there… Read more »
It’s only going to get better. For decades, American medical schools have admitted Black with lower grades and test scores than Asians and White. Now there is serious condideration in academic medicine about graduating Blacks with grades that would be failing for Asian or White medical students.
Z you should read Ernst Junger if you haven’t;
“ Democracy teaches lessons to which one is not permitted to answer.”
Interview 1982
Can’t get this to post under dittmar’s post as a reply. Maybe this will work, not that it will be noticed. Perhaps you were speaking of the Veterinary School of the University of Pennsylvania? We took our 12 year old rescue border collie in to our local vet for teeth cleaning, during which they noticed a growth that was too hard to get a sample for testing. We wound up taking her to Penn Veterinary upon their recommendation, and they were wonderful (as is often the case with teaching hospitals for us humans), ultimately pulling a few teeth, and after… Read more »
You should read pdmangan150 on Twitter for health advice.
I read PD too. Learned a lot from him. Come on guys, 30 minutes intense aerobic exercise is not too much to ask. 7 exercises, 10ish reps to failure, 30 minutes, 3 times a week. If you then eat enough protein you will add muscle, look better, feel better. When i started out, i could only do 3,4 pullups, 12 pushups. Now, 4 months later, i can do 13 pulls ups, 31, 32 pushups. No excuses. Make your body happy. Also, eat less often. Do you eat breakfast because you’re hungry or out of habit? Try skipping breakfast, 2 well… Read more »
I get by fine, at one meal a day. Regular exercise, outdoors. No garbage foods consumed.
Not rocket science.
I agree. Good routine, Tyupi. You’ll be ready when the mob comes!
The mob is already on hand.
It’s all so disheartening …. but like everything else, corporatism, the grift, and the desire for position and power have corrupted it all. I remember a different healthcare system that still worked, even into the 1980s. I recall a visit to a palsied, old, translucent-skinned surgeon in 1980. Had an odd mole on my arm and made the climb up the polished oak stairway of the magnificent “professional arts” building where he had his office. His nurse was a stately, older “looker” dressed in a starched, white nurses outfit, complete with cap. His shaky hands quickly handled the syringe and… Read more »
PrimiPilus: ‘He held it up to the light, rolled it between his fingers, and said: “Nope, not cancer,” and threw it into the trash.’ The existential sea change in Amurrikkkun health care is not being driven by governments nor by corporations nor by market forces nor by technology, but rather by the emergence of NEW PERSONALITY TYPES within the White race. There is a titanic meta-darwinian war at play in Amurrikkkun health care, and as things stand right now, the Passive Aggressive Industrial Complex [informed by the Sanhedrin of the Frankfurt School] is selecting & molding impressionable White healthcare personalities… Read more »
Guess what? Corporations are taking over vet offices. My vet, a local guy, just sold out to a southern corporation that is buying up vet practices. In my rural and small town NY region, there is only one vet left who is the old fashioned sole practitioner. And,prices are going up. Also going up? Prices of pet medicines. They used to be cheap, in many cases, just rebranded smaller does of human stuff. Not any more.
Ah…behold the glories of the free market. The invisible hand conceals a dagger.
If you are racing toward it decrepitude is still some way off.
Get back to us when it’s a shuffle.
I’ve suspected most routine healthcare is a farce for a while now. I’m 42 and never get a checkup because I know they’ll ask 6 dozen stupid questions, look in my ears, ask if I smoke, and be horrified at my weight despite the fact that I’m stronger than I’ve ever been after having got serious about lifting. We are now beginning to realize that the whole cholesterol thing was a scam from the get go. The prostate exam is a is akin to trying to find a needle in a haystack, BMI is a ridiculous metric because they want… Read more »
If I only had more happy face upvotes to give in service of your comment about homebirths. So often when there’s an issue with the baby at the hospital, they caused it in the first place.
You want normal healthy kids? Homebirth and home schooling, ftw.
My youngest is 7. Only been to doctor twice (and no vaccines whatsoever). When healthcare comes up in discussion and someone asks about her doctor, I say she does not have one. They then ask about refular checkups, etc. I ask why should I. Anyone who sees her can see she is fit as a fiddle and smart and mature. They invariably follow with, “Well, dont you eant to make sure?” I always reply, “Who knows more about my child’s health. A stranger who interacts with her for four minutes, or a loving, intelligent father who deals with her everyday,… Read more »
At least they’re getting rid of the BMI, which apparently is rayciss, fatphobic, and in general too istismphobe. Sigh. At least they’re getting rid of it. As for the rest of it, it only gets worse with time, always worse and always at an ever worsening rate of change in the always-worsening worseness. The worst of all right now is the clot shot, which they’ve now officially deemed “safe and effective” at 6 months hold, and it wouldn’t surprise me if they fudge this to the downside, at any newborn age, no matter how young. Also, a parent really needs… Read more »
“ BMI is a ridiculous metric because they want us all skinny and weak and most of *their* drugs do nothing.”
Yep, lift and build muscle, you won’t pass it. In all my insurance evaluations, I never once passed BMI—always some level of obesity indicated. Insurance agent/examiner always laughed and commiserated with me, then called the office with his “observations”. I always got a waver and never declined for insurance. That’s how much the insurance industry considered the validity of the BMI rating.
Good points…
but BMI is actually a pretty useful measure for the vast majority of people. Very few men (and almost no women) are naturally carrying the amount of muscle to push them out of the healthy category, and if youre a serious athlete (which very few are) presumably youre also knowledgeable enough about physiology to mentally correct “overweight” slightly down to healthy.
Most people that are out of healthy BMI really are unhealthy and dont need the cope of thinking its actually only because theyre totally swole from bicep curls and stairstepper a couple times a week.
Have to support you on this one. Huskyfats with big pecs but big bellies.
I see my BMI range to correlate quite well with when I’m carrying just a bit too much and when I am lean.
Yep… Stipe Miocic fighting for UFC heavyweight title is 6-4 234, bmi 28 officially only “overweight”. Probably heavily juiced like most of the rest of UFC even at that…
And yet everybody at planet fitness is BMI category “obese” definitely due to how jacked they are and not papa johns.
Good heavens, Papa John’s. The less said about that the better. Papa John’s was mentioned at Nuremburg.
Turns out RFK Jr is juiced, admitted to testosterone supplementation. All-in Hollywood. Explains why he bears little resemblance to Bobby Kennedy of just a few years ago.
“… but BMI is actually a pretty useful measure for the vast majority of people. ”
That’s not the point, the point is that for well built, athletic men it gives false positives. Additionally, the BMI is *not* a diagnostic measurement. It tells you nothing of pathology—nothing. So a failed “score” means what? Rating people as “unhealthy” solely on such an instrument is a misuse of it.
here is a great take on the role of the pharma and hoe it is key to sooooo much abuse . https://tobyrogers.substack.com/p/how-then-shall-we-think-about-the?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
Z – what’s going to collapse aren’t the Fascists, in this case Healthcare, but the geezers. You are making a Who/Whom category error; Whom always wins if Whom is a THEM.
“ . A highly complex system operated by low-IQ people is doomed due to that mismatch, but throw in the tens of millions of old people demanding services and collapse is the only possible outcome.”
Yea, the old people will collapse and die. Not the HC organizations.
The veterans affairs is different than the civilan hospitals, but the one thing they both have in common is their contempt for the patients. The VA has a multi-billion dollar budget, yet the care received is terrible. I have not any serious issues, but should I need serious care someday, I would be scared out of mind. The people who work at the VA tend to personify every negative stereotype of the government worker. I firmly believe the VA is just another bloated government agency whose primary goal is to pay more government workers. If all of us veterans died… Read more »
I was struck by how overwhelmingly vibrant the staff was at the last VA hospital I visited
That only makes sense. The Vibrants have long been noted for their adoration of veterans, especially those of WWII and Korean War stripe.
I’ll say this at the risk of pissing a few people off, but the primary problem with the VA is being overloaded with patients. There are far too many veterans who did their four years in the rear (like most of us did, including me), then spend the rest of their lives using the VA for their primary healthcare. If you have a disability rating, or are one of those few people that just “need” VA healthcare, that’s one thing. But the rest of us need to do like everyone else and leave the VA alone. Your four years shouldn’t… Read more »
You certainly may have a point. Perhaps instead of overloading the VA system with vets using it for primary care, and thereby diluting the specialized care for those with serious bodily wounds/prostheses and psychological scarring, if there could be veteran’s rates for their general health needs (absent those serious specifically service-related problems I ennumerated) offered by HMOs and insurerers, this might take some of the pressure off of the specialized therapies deployed by the VA.
Another point: OTC potassium supplement will do more for controlling HBP than their drugs (but their drugs will not work so great unless thyroid is fixed first, at which point you won’t need their drugs). Same thing they give you in the ER — IV potassium. Statins can induce what amounts to MS: destruction of the cholesterol-based neural sheathing. In old age, high cholesterol is actually protective against neural degeneration…. and happens because when thyroid declines, cholesterol isn’t utilized as efficiently. Arterial plaque has more to do with bad teeth and gum disease. There’s a researcher where I used to… Read more »
Great comment! The only thing you left out is magnesium. Magnesium is an integral part of the sodium ion pump system “muscle contraction and relaxation.” Sodium and calcium are flex muscle, potassium and magnesium are relax muscle. That includes arterial tension and relaxation. If western dr.’s had a clue high BP and a multitude of neuromuscular diseases could be eradicated or treated with simple magnesium supplements. Americans are immensely depleted in magnesium due to industrial farming and lack of crop rotation. Americans consume massive amounts of caffeine and caffeine causes depletion of all electrolytes. But we get about sodium because…… Read more »
“Excess” sodium (usually, but not always salt) in the diet is another mountain made out of a mole hill. Yes, high sodium in the diet will raise one’s blood pressure…a few points. In the very frail it’s more of a factor, but still seems relatively tame. As with many critical substances in the body, there’s an optimal range. Too high or too low and problems ranging from the mild to lethal. It gets a bit more complex, but a person is liable to run into serious health risks (or even death) with sodium too low. The truth about sodium is… Read more »
My father died of colon cancer, I survived. Yep, can’t beat genes. But I will argue *for* a colonoscopy as this test caught and cured it, since you can cut it out on the spot if timing is right. It was. This event also educated me on the current state of our “health care” system, hence my many comments today. I received treatment and concern because of connections that I’d wager none of the people commenting here can imagine, much less will ever experience—and that ain’t right. Never got a bill, never had to queue in line, was even guided… Read more »
Weird flex but ok
You haven’t been somewhere that VCA or Banfield have taken over the veterinary industry, which instantly couples it with “pet insurance” (same ownership) and bean counters. At the time I had backroom privs at my vet and watched the changeover in realtime. Now all the beans that used to be bundled into overhead are individually counted, and as a direct result prices are now 10x what they were before. Meanwhile the massive influx of new income funds an army of techs and paperpushers, and now there are places where it’s impossible to actually see the vet; at most you may… Read more »
Haven’t had mine checked yet, but based on success with Atkins I’m not complaining yet. Atkins (the books) do mention hypo thyroid as a potential problem barrier to weight loss. Too, he says that it’s not always diagnosed correctly. So if you think you have it, you may need to press for additional tests. I’m not claiming you are wrong about flaxseed or aspartame, but those are new cautions to me. Aspartame is already suspected of all sorts of issues, even Atkins recommended against it in early 2000s. Even the WHO recently trashed it. Of course, the WHO has taken… Read more »
Spot on Z! In the late 90’s I fired my quack doctor “the type whose prescription for all that ailes you is to hand out anti represents.” I went up to the ghestapo window and asked for my file so I could take it with me to another dr. The feminazi told me I couldn’t have my file and it would be sent to my new dr. I was done with the healthcare system right there. This was also around the time they started collecting “data” for the government with questionnaires you had to fill out before they would see… Read more »
Wonderful yes we had an old family doc that knew us through 3 generations also so he knew what conditions we were likely to develop. He was the best of the old time docs and he basically did everything out of a 3 room former house with just one nurse and an office girl and an Xray machine. Prices for services were posted right at the desk and there was none of that hmo/gatekeeper quackery. Imagine if we eliminated the entire middleman healthcare worker jobs how much money we could save. Make me want to go right out and cancel… Read more »
The Dutch had a mellow fringe culture with their pot coffeehouses but of course America has to overdo and ruin absolutely everything. I have to laugh when I see all the dispensary billboards around Phoenix. It’s like a weird 1960s satirical dystopia.
The dude that supposedly discovered CTE was Nigerian. Enough said.
I feel if nurses had the same standards flight attendants did 50 years ago (i.e. you have to be hot) then some of the problems z talks about would go away
Job application question to be a nurse: “Would you fit into a small rowboat?”
Holy shit fellas
Just die with yer boots on ffs
Re: Irrelevant questions on healthcare forms (waiting room activities). I had a relative who somehow found out he was put on some kind of list by the state, and he couldn’t figure out how to get off the list or how he was put on it. I discussed the matter with a friend who had had the same doc for decades and knew him well. He asked “why all the personal questions that had nothing to do with his visit?” Apparently, the state (deep south red state), collects this info from health providers for the purpose of vetting gun purchases.… Read more »
Always answer no, or just decline to answer, any questionnaires about gun ownership. Everywhere, always.
Yes, indeed. The point, though, was that it was supposed to be a health questionnaire only. Is it generally known, or can anyone here confirm or deny, that the data is provided to the state for the purpose of vetting potential gun purchasers? My friend’s doc said that these questions were for that purpose.
It doesn’t matter. What is forbidden today, is permissible tomorrow. The point is that it is in the database. Keep your database free of such things. On the internet, there are no victims—only volunteers.
No, don’t always answer “no” or worse, decline. Read and understand the question, then lie. A decline to answer is simply considered in the worse possible light, and you will be flagged. A “no” answer likewise could be the wrong answer and you will be flagged.
This is the same as answering “no” to the myriad of questions on your 4473 gun purchase form. There is one question that requires a “Yes” response in the middle. Smart shop owners always point that out so you don’t get slap happy with answering “no”.
My eye doctor’s office was forced by regulation to change its charting software a few years ago. Getting ready for my first exam after the change, she got confused when the forms started demanding she ask me all kinds of weird lifestyle questions she’d never had to ask anyone. I sensed a pattern and she liked me so she let me come sit and look at it with her. Eventually I spotted that when I’d broken my foot about ten years earlier I’d been given an open-ended prescription for some kind of quasi-morphine. I’d never filled it once because things… Read more »
Not too long ago my wife, a cancer patient, was bleeding into herself through a wound introduced by our hospital. We were at the emergency service when the female black doctor with those long, highly-detailed faux fingernails was nervously tapping them against her teeth and bulbous lips during diagnosis phase. This jogger then went to touch the affected area with the contaminated nails and fingerd. I batted her hand away violently and uttered what I would do to her — death — if she persisted. I demanded a new trauma doctor and was granted a good one without being arrested.… Read more »
Back in the 1990’s when I was working in the SF Bay area tech industry, I was appalled by the high cost of the HMO system and the limitations of care it provided. Had I read this blog back then, I would have ranted on about how terrible the US medical system is compared to what we have here in Germany. How every German is insured and covered and we can practically walk into a local doctors and be seen without an appointment. Back in the day, Germany really was a model for how well socialized medicine works here in… Read more »
One of the major problems is that the role of health care has changed. BITD, it was primarily to deal with people getting sick. But now, it has a goal of “managing your health.” This seems reasonable, at least to a small degree. Seeing your doctor once or twice a year to check for the early signs of big diseases easily treated early is not a bad idea. But, of course, they try to systematize this and you end up with Z-Man’s pointless visit to his PCP where he doesn’t even see his doctor and most of the appointment is… Read more »
During my Army enlistment, I spent two years in Germany (early 1980s). One of my closest friends, also a soldier, was a bit older (late 20s) and had served earlier in Germany. Unusual for a GI, he spoke passable German and had many German friends. He once made a very insightful comment about Germany’s health care system: that people became doctors so they could help people, not because they wanted to get rich.
If the aspect of “getting rich” takes the form of either quality or efficiency, then I’m all for it. What seems not spoken of enough here is such. An example, CAT scans and MRI’s. Here we have “private” centers that schedule and perform such work outside of the more common places like hospitals. In many socialized medicine countries, these tests I’m told are often scheduled weeks or months in advance. I’ve never had an appointment (and I’ve now had several) more than a few days or a week out and the examine is a few hundred dollars with analysis provided—at… Read more »
A country with all white people can do a LOT of things that make sense. Almost none of that would work with US demographics. None of it will work with future German demographics unless a miracle happens.
The whole European model wont work after the termites get in. Nothing will.
If you think things are bad with marijuana now, wait until marijuana is de-scheduled and becomes legal at the federal level! Right now, big corporations are staying away from Marijuana and THC because it’s illegal and the banks are federal and they could lose all their money and go to federal prison. Right now marijuana is like 90s internet. Lots of small providers with good prices. It’s the wild wild West of marijuana. But when the DEA de-schedules Marijuana, all bets are off. Wait until it’s sitting on the shelves in Walmart, Target and Walgreens next to the aspirin and… Read more »
When I wonder why pot legalization is pushed so hard, when it is such a clearly bad idea, one obvious motivation is the profit motive.
But I also detect an element of the Boomers spiting their conservative parents. It’s like we have to have pot legalization now because their parents punished them for smoking a joint in the late 60s. “Ha ha Dad! I take my revenge against you now!”
That may be part of it, but I think a big part of it is how many blacks got arrested for it. The news media was always running the poor black man in prison for marijuana possession thing and of course, it was always a lie. They did a spotlight on one guy supposedly in state prison for a joint. They ignored the 25 other convictions and the 12 hot urine parole violations. With my personal favorite as a guy who was sent to prison for life for a hot urine with the judge saying “Good luck, Mr Brown” while… Read more »
i don’t think many boomers are thinking about their parents these days.
Except to get them in an adult non care facility ASAP and transfer the deed to the parents home in their name to hide the capital value from the govt, to get the tax payers to foot the bill, then clean out their parents bank accounts and investment portfolios.
The cat cardiologist! I had to take my cat to the cardioligist several years ago after her check-up showed her having an unusually rapid heartbeat. They put her on some heart medicine and now she’s pushing 20 yrs!
In all seriousness though, it’s astonishing how the quality of human care and veterinary care differ. I live in PA which has a cutting edge veterinary college. Several years ago, my doggo blew out her knee. A vet here completely reconstructed her knee for a couple of thousand bucks. A similar surgery on myself would have run to tens of thousands.
Thailand, I heard, had medical malls where you just walked in, everything from a checkup to heart surgery. Pay cash, and biff, boom, bam. In India an MRI cost 150 bucks. (What is that, like 500,000 rupees?)
This is true. A friend of a friend is married to a Thai woman. He went to Thailand a few years ago for a heart procedure, no waiting list for 6 months, chose his doctor, without red tape, paid cash. Recovered from the procedure and doing fine. Is a sorry state of affairs when an upper middle class lawyer has to travel to what most would deem a third world country to get better medical care without a hassle.
My dad died last year, my dog died this year (of cancer). I’d have to say that the dog got better treatment than my dad did.
The veterinarian was an old white guy. Kept the dog alive for a year-and-a-half before she came out of remission.
Off-topic…but I think I may have found a non-metal anthem for the disgruntled dissident patriot! 😂👍
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9oDxynh7rG0
Have a great Friday frens.
I’m so old that my doc of nearly 3 decades retired and the HMO had to assign a new gatekeeper GP from the pool. The advantage of having a doc that knows you is that communication is easy. For example, when he asked if I taken the clot shot, I gave him the “look” and it was never discussed again. My new doc is a woman in her 30s with kids. So med school, now full-time employed, and raising a family to boot. She’s also a bike fanatic, so we get along quite well. My sense is that she is… Read more »
First two paragraphs: A-
Last paragraph: F
I’m not going to apologize for what millions of years of evolution has instilled in the male cohort of most mammal species. We wouldn’t have babies without it. And it’s not like it was volitional and discretionary.
I think the problem is just with you wearing bike shorts in public 🙂
I agree. People with this sort of sick compulsion used to have the decency to keep it a private matter.
She could “thwack” it with a pencil. 😳
Problem solved.
Seriously dude? Ever heard of “TMI?”
What’s Three-Mile Island got to do with it?
you filthy old fool. what a disgrace. not surprising though.
What a delightfully amusing comment for this blog.
Hey there, Aqualung!
Gross.
Get cycling underwear with bike padding built in and wear normal athletic shorts or pants (tuck one pantleg in or strap down or wear joggers with tapered leg). Youre not Lance Armstrong needing extra 10ths up the mountain.
Literally no one needs to see that at all and if anyone needs to see it even less than that somehow its a decent woman with a family.
I think what you’re going to find is that high end medical clinics with all the latest equipment and English speaking doctors will pop up in towns like Tijuana, Mexicali, Ciudad Juarez, etc. etc. No, I’m not talking about the plastic surgery mills that kill their patients from time to time. Well-to-do people in places like the wealthier suburbs of San Diego will decide that they’d rather be tended to by doctors and nurses who are not the product of American medical schools, what with test scores being thrown out as admittance criteria and racial quotas ensuring that qualified white… Read more »
The concierge doctor thing is already happening, I think the bigger question is whether/how those wealthy suburbs survive perpetually into the future.
Already there. Straight down the I-5 from San Diego, top-notch cancer care hospitals and clinics festooning Tijuana like a lively port for marooned Americans. Once you get past the ghettos with little kids and chickens running around in the street, that is.
(Historical note: a visit to a “Tijuana dentist” was an abortion clinic for hapless Hollywood wannabes before Roe v. Wade.
Gays were able to get laetril, the alternative treatment for HIV, under the first Fauci Pandemic.)
If it’s a choice between a 350-mile drive to Juarez to see a Castillian doc or a three-mile drive to see a nuggra witch doctor…well…that’s really no choice at all.
A decade or so back when at the university, I had a chance to read in depth my new university insurer’s plan. I usually don’t bother since there is zero choice in the matter—you get who they (State) contracts with, or nothing.
I stumble upon a procedure for switching your assigned doctor on account of *race*. Yep, there was a procedure outlined to follow if you didn’t want an (AA. ;-)) minority doctor assigned to you. Had to read it twice to make sure it was saying what I think it was saying.
Wow, is this ever a timely subject. Like Z, I am in good health and only interact with the “health care system” for an annual physical. But my 82-year old dad got sick and died last year, and that was an eye-opener for all the wrong reasons. He was double-vaxxed but got COVID anyway. Due to other health Issues, I took him to the ER for his fever of 102.5. I was afraid he was going to die right there, the big, fat, lethargic black receptionists didn’t give a fuck and it was difficult to even understand their Ebonics. There… Read more »
“When my times up, I’ll hold my own
You won’t find me in an old folks home”
Lynyrd Skinner singer Ronnie Van Zant’s words were prophetic; he and a few others died in a plane crash a few years later. 🙁
If you need to be seen immediately at an emergency room just call an ambulance.
Other patients’ success at getting required prescriptions, timely visits, etc., has always seemed completely foreign and incomprehensible to me. The only time I ever received even minimally acceptable care was when my doctor was in love with me. Your comment clarified the situation: Everyday retail medical “access” is unnavigable to patients who aren’t accustomed to running scams. My rich friends who can send a text and get their choice of speed or psych meds or whatever in an hour have told me that the reason I can’t even reliably get my unabusable chronic-symptom-relief pills is because I’m “autistic.” What they… Read more »
I had the exact same experience with my mother. It’s like a tripwire where once they get it in their head that the person is demented or senile then it’s fine to treat the person like garbage and they even assume that the patient’s family wants to bump them off. Like to the Chinaman doctor it was a foreign concept that I might actually care about my mother. In my mom’s case she wasn’t senile but had gone blind and suffered from hallucinations caused by the blindness (apparently your brain starts making stuff up to compensate for the lack of… Read more »
Well, if my friends in health care are any points of data, half of health care hates the other half.
Thats a good point… pretty much every profession has its remnant who is suffering from dealing with the insanity and stupidity of the rest of the profession as much or more than the rest of us.
Know this is true of goverment education, university, lawyers, public health, doctors, etc. Even toilets like HR usually have a few good apples trying their best to stay undiscovered and therefore unpunished.
Its good to realize that there are a lot of us out there, we just lack means to identify one another.
I work in healthcare, and can tell you that families often have an unrealistic understanding of their parent’s prognosis.
My father was healthy as a horse working a full time physical job at 80 years old. He liked the job and dreaded retirement. He didn’t need to work and was highly in demand. His doctor found a lump on his ear and sent him to a cancer doctor. About 16 months later he was dead. His quality of life for the last year was terrible. He had several operations, a round of radiation and 2 rounds of chemo. I seriously doubt a single day was added to his life. I believe had he just ignored it, he would have… Read more »
“Hospice” can be a godsend under the right care and circumstances and at the right time. The latter being a big part of hospice; the acceptance and care decisions at end of life.
But it has also become like “Covid” vis a vis billing codes, reimbursables, and the ability to shift a lot of deaths at the hands of the system into hospice which reduces the institutions mortality stats.
Evil has permeated the whole system. Enter accordingly.
Really, if you are over 60 you need to have an exit strategy in place NOW, otherwise the first minor stroke or heart issue will take that decision out of your hands and you will wake up in the hospital and be at the mercy of the healthcare system, they may even decide to appoint a court ordered medical guardian for you in which case they will asset strip you and keep you prisoner/sick for as long as possible. If possible and you have someone you can trust, give them your medical power of attorney, and make out a POLST… Read more »
the ironic thing is a person has far more control over their health than a doctor does (if that makes sense). if you do a few simple things, like avoid toxic pseudo-foods, limit caloric intake, exercise daily for at least 45 minutes, etc you will have good health and not need doctors and their dysfunctional treatments. but most people are unwilling to make any effort in this regard, and therefore they suffer the consequences. there is a wealth of information online about improving your health, and avoiding harmful behavior, that is far more effective than anything your GP is going… Read more »
Not sure how old you are Karl, but I’m old. As I age, I’m a bit more sympathetic to others wrt health upkeep. Z-man is spot on wrt our health care “system”, it’s corrupt and stinks and certainly people can go a long way to helping themselves in this regard, however it’s difficult and now I can appreciate such. Everyday, before I get out of bed, I look up at the ceiling and realize that this moment is the *best* I’ll feel all day. Old age is pain. The body ages and things break or get sore. Exercise exasperates this.… Read more »
I have the opposite issue these days – I feel at my worst when I wake up.
Other than that, you are spot on. I picked up a book about training for aging athletes, and it can be boiled down to use it or lose it.
The mental part is true as well. Suddenly, in middle age it’s a real effort to get up and out.
Sleep quality has gone right down the tubes, though my current post-work habit of flopping on the couch and nodding off certainty helping.
“… it can be boiled down to use it or lose it.”
Howard, as usual, you’ve succinctly reduced my overly lengthy comment to it’s essence. Thanks
I’m 54, felt like a million bucks till 50. Back, knees, neck, aching muscles, tendons. I’ve done mostly physical labor all my life “skilled trades.” I thought “but I don’t sit on my ass in a cubicle I spend 8-10 hours a day exercising on the job, what’s up with this?” I’m basically working out on the job, and I work out off the job when I can. You said it best… “old age is pain!”
“Old age is pain.”
Oh man, truer words were never spoken. That has been the one thing that has amazed me the most about growing old, the sheer amount of effort I have to give to managing and dealing with pain. I guess spending a significant amount of my early adulthood skiing and whitewater rafting for a living has a price.
As far wiser people before me have said, “Growing old ain’t for pussies.”
i am 66 and retired. i practice what i preach, and feel very good, for which i am appreciative. and i am sympathetic to those worse off than me 🙂 are you doing yoga, or walking? not sure what your particular circumstances are, but it sounds like you may have some serious limitations :(. you might get your testosterone levels checked; if low augmentation will help a lot. probably the one thing i do that is most beneficial is fasting. one day a week i go without food the entire day, which is really more like 36 total hours of… Read more »
The fasting recommendation seems good. I’ve stopped eating between 7 and 7. That’s another recommendation I’ve taking from others. Can’t say I miss it.
https://www.amazon.com/Fasting-Eating-Health-Medical-Conquering/dp/031218719X/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3BE8H1ERY9ITF&keywords=fasting+and+eating+for+health&qid=1688817690&sprefix=fasting+and+ea%2Caps%2C94&sr=8-1
Great book on how and why to fast, but gotta get past his vegan bent.
Do you have any thoughts on what to do with the people who are unable to follow your good advice? In general, I believe that people who can’t take care of themselves should have their lives taken over by the state. For example, I favor putting homeless people or those who refuse to work to support themselves in camps. If your life has reached this point, you can’t inflict yourself on society. There should be paths for the people in the camps to work their way out and rejoin society, but I expect that most of them will be unable.… Read more »
I’ve always thought that a “two tier” system of health care is the answer. A “lower” tier I’ll call basic, and a higher tier I’ll call “premium”. The basic tier is supplied and paid for by the government and all citizens are automatically enrolled. The premium tier by those electing to pay for a supplement to that care. Since this is a voluntary supplemental plan, you are subject to a rating process to determine payment. Of course, this requires competition and States must bend to allow such by the Fed’s. The basic tier does not provide all types of care… Read more »
I will no countenance any discussion of legalized euthanasia for anybody, ever. That is the road to hell.
If you think your obese nurses of color are obnoxious now, just imagine them getting to decide whether or not to kill you.
There you go again ID. Legalized euthanasia is not necessarily involuntary and it is in wide-spread practice today in the USA! It’s called “hospice” and it is paid for 100% by the Fed’s. Here’s how it (not all cases, obviously) works. You have a disease that threatens your life if not treated (or even if treated). For example—and this is one example of many I can cite from direct experience—you need dialysis to survive. Your survival without dialysis is measured in days and is painful. However, life saving as this procedure is, it is grueling, difficult, expensive, and fraught with… Read more »
“Kwayo Toubob” (kill whitey)
This is a slippery slope to Soylient Green!
Something has to be done about these ppl but your solution ain’t it. Better hope you don’t fall on hard times if your policy becomes govt policy!
Take a look at Canada and their “kill bill” legislation.
A hospice beneficiary can disenroll from the benefit at anytime. If I’m right then calling 911 rather than the hospice agency in an emergency is enough to disenroll a beneficiary from the hospice benefit.
On a prior blog post, I commented civilization tried to tame nature and in the process created lots of unintended problems (mostly incompetent and stupid people).
Many people don’t like nature, but it is surprisingly merciful. If you’re old or weak, you’re simply killed off rapidly. No years and decades of suffering, no clogging the system, no bankrupting future generations.
Nature keeps things clean, it is civilization and its healthcare systems that clog up society.
Baytovin hurtt eer. Bayng masstidon feemer on bolder. Southe eer.
Agree. See my essay length posting on that general topic below. Although I seem have reached my early 60s without too much damage, my self-improvement came in gradual steps. In my mid-20s I drank a six pack or more of regular soda. I rented a room in a home with an “alternative health” library. I browsed these. The one piece of advice I took was to cut down on the sugar: I was drinking perhaps 800+ calories of pure sugar daily, well over 1/3 of needed calories even for a large male. Two pieceds if you count taking a multi-vitamin.… Read more »
it is a lot easier to prevent damage to your body (through healthy habits) than fix things once they go wrong. doctors don’t deal in good health, they deal in sickness.
A person has control over their health until they don’t. It seems easy until it isn’t.
care to elaborate on that?
Maybe you will be fortunate enough to remain fit and healthy just because you did the “right” things, I hope so, but it is not so for everyone.
Completely true. But genetics play a big role as well. You can lead the life of a totally irresponsible maniac (Jimmy Page, Keith Richards) and soldier into your 80s if your genes or good. On the other hand, you can be a health saint and drop dead in your early 50s like Jim Fixx if you draw the genetic black bean.
Keith Richards is a god. No man can be immortal like Keith. If he dies, he must be preserved for scientific study. Before he dies, he must be cloned. As a child of the 50’s and 60’s, I stand in awe. 😉
We’ve been watching Stones concerts, starting with the most recent (before Charlie Watts died) and working back. The durability and energy of the Big 3 (Keith, Jagger and Ronnie Wood) to this day is staggering. I hope to find out one day why they went so nuts with clot shot mandates for their recent tours.
I used to have a boss whose energy toward the end of 12 work days astounded me. Later found out he was snorting a little coke late in the afternoon. I’m willing to bet the Stones have access to high $ designer stimulants that most of us wouldn’t think about or never heard of. Probably legal too.
12 hour work days
Page’s smack addition almost killed him in the late 70s. Now, at the age of ca. 80 he looks the helluva lot better than he did when he was 30. I would say that God is looking out for him, but that would be ludicrous. Another supernatural entity may be, though…
Jim Fixx’s death had a big impact of my Dad. He was an early adopter of fitness in the 70s. He was the first guy to be seen jogging and the first to have a home weight gym. I remember he had Jim Fixx’s books, as well as books by Arnold before Arnold was a movie start. I remember my Dad saying that one of the most rewarding things about fitness was how much of it was under his control, unlike his work life, where so much was beyond his control. Your progress was a function of your own effort… Read more »
Most excellent rant – because so so true.
Last time I went to my doc he fired me because I don’t have insurance. Could not believe I was even in his office without insurance even though ready to pay cash. He was only my doc b/c he replaced my last one who quit after covid. I think most of the thinking ones split then.
I’ve paid cash for years, self employed. They treat you like you’re a drug cartel lord, or a space alien. They are in disbelief and clueless that a lot of non poor working people don’t have insurance.
It also goes with “ok, well how much does that cost?” And then watching them look at you crooked and mumble and fuss and then ask “what is your insurance?”. “Cash.” And then “uh well I will have to go look that up mumble mumble”
The irony of calling the health insurance a “marketplace”. There are no prices, only billings and collectables.
If you want to pay cash, you need to find a privately owned clinic or concierge clinic. They love, Love, LOVE when patients pay cash and will almost always have a reduced price list, or flat discount, for everything if you pay at time of service. Don’t even bother with hospital-affiliated providers if cash is your thing. My hospital lab doesn’t even have a price list for the tests we run.
As one of those who’ve taken advantage of the full subsidy value of Obamacare since it started, allow me to defend the concept of marketplace. Your statement is probably true enough about and may be referring to the billing at the doctor’s level. However, the online health exchanges where we buy our policies really are marketplaces, in the sense that there are multiple options for how we can “spend” our subsidy. For example, my health needs are modest so I choose a plan mostly paid by the subsidy, this is the “silver” policy. If somebody wants more bells and whistles,… Read more »
Or in reality, your subsidy is the net of my premium and actual utilized expenses plus some double-digit administrative carry. You’re welcome, Mr. Marketplace.
Anyone manage to find a rheumatologist that works for cash?
Asking for a friend…
Sounds like the best of all pills might be a .357 slug.
You’ll know we’re finished (as in end point) as a society when euthanasia become legal and celebrated. Logan’s Run here we come.
“Welcome to the Monkey House”.
Yeah. Now it’s a ‘choice’. It won’t be in the future
It was also a “choice” in Soylent Green. For what such choice was worth. 🙁
It already is in places like Belgium
Is that like the 9mm retirement plan?
It’s the 401 H&K.
Gods yes, Logan’s Run!
Only if I get the hot white chicks in astro-microskirts on hookup call to order. Runnerrr!
Renew! Renew! Renew!
Yep. But I’m no Micheal York, so I expect choices presented to me would be of little interest to you. ;-(
Excellent podcast on a topic that (unfortunately) I know far too much about, having worked in HC in various capacities for over 20 years, now as a lab tech. In that time I’ve learned two important things. First, while individual caregivers *may* care about you and your health, the overall system couldn’t care in the slightest. As you say, you are merely a source of revenue. Second, the modern healthcare system is a massive money-laundering operation. You learn this if you have to be admitted for any reason, because at no time in the process can you get an accurate… Read more »
I will interject to appreciate some aspects of the health care system. My wife has had five c-sections, and the physiology of her body is such that if we were in the 1800’s I would have buried my wife after she died delivering our first child. For our most recent, my wife was in recovery for four days, and our child had to be in the NICU for 8 days. We haven’t gotten all the bills, but our insurance is looking at paying 150 grand for everything, our family about $1000. The nurses were also excellent and caring, our doctor… Read more »
I’ve had good experiences in hospitals too. Once you get past the waiting, the admin, and the data-mining, it’s not bad. I just stay away from the places that look like they’re full of underinsured people. The total cost of health care has always been a problem in this country. It’s just like the military with their $75 hammers. Everyone complains about it, including politicians and the media, yet things have not improved. Nobody – NOBODY – actually supports employer-sponsored health care. Even the boomer-cons who still shake their fists at “socialized medicine”. Yet it’s been a thing for 40… Read more »
Congratulations to you and your wife! I hope she and the baby are thriving.
“ That being said, 150 grand for a routine surgery and for two people to stay in the hospital for a few days is ludicrous, and I would argue about 75% of it was administrative.” But did the insurance pay $150K? Doubtful. This is nothing but a Kabuki “dance” in which one party over-bills and the other party underpays. Here’s an example taken from my Medicare. I had blood work done. They billed Medicare something like $1,115. Medicare sent me an itemized statement as to these blood work charges and what they paid. Long story short, Medicare paid about $115–total!… Read more »
We had a much worse experience with our hospital system having babies post Covid. This was late fall 2021 and they were still in full totalitarian mode. There was a shift away from patient care that had been very good before then. The costs are also outrageously high, in addition to what we pay for our insurance every month we shelled out another $6,000. It really does seem to be a case of the quality of doctor you get. It is understandable why a lot of the trad wife types are trying to do home births with a midwife after… Read more »
The birth of ours during lockdowns was a nightmare. Either totally lazy of psychopaths. Our best nurse was explaining how the hospital was trying to get her fired for refusing the vax. It made a 180 since then somehow.
Eat too much = get fat.
Yeah, but a I’ve come to believe it’s a bit more complicated as our foods and genetic makeup is often a mismatch. Remember the 60’s? I do. Look at any of the army training films and the recruits. Stick thin. What happened? We didn’t have folk over eat then? Doubtful. We’ve had a societal sea change. Exercise down—yes. But processed food, and fast foods (eating out) way up as well. So where are genes in this? Must be. I myself retired and then lost 3 pants sizes just by getting off my ass from a computer screen. My diet is… Read more »
Partially true. But if you read about nutrition, especially slightly away from the mainstream, you’ll find the details are a little bit different. Although it sounds counter-intuitive, the body handles a calorie that comes from a carbohydrate or a fat rather differently. Atkins and similar keto diets may not be mainstream, but there is a lot of science that backs up their claims. And personal experience too…I lost 20+ Lb. in < 3 months on Atkins. I've drastically cut my consumption of junk carbs, and my blood lipids show the improvement. It's not picture perfect (my "total cholesterol" is still… Read more »
When the doctor asks me “how are you today” as part of exchanging basic pleasantries, he codes that exchange as a “depression screening” and gets a nice insurance payout. Medical billing, just like every other part of the system, is an enormous grift.
Does this show up on some sort of itemized statement you receive?
No. It’s factored into the time the provider spent with you. I see it in their reports every day.
Vittorio, not sure of your specific example, but the billing gaming practice seems alive and well. One example personally observed: birth of our son. Two weeks premature—if one can really say that, birth estimates have variation in accuracy. Point is however, hospital tossed the mother and child out even with a weak liver function test. The DRG for the birth paid one amount, regardless of such minor complications. We were instructed to do some “magical” home treatment for this jaundiced baby by setting him along the patio window, naked and exposing him to sunlight for UV rays. I kept my… Read more »
As I like to tell people, you could ask 10 people what was wrong with the American healthcare system and you’d get 10 different answers and they would all be correct. Also, this is a hobby horse of super-normie Karl Denninger and I recall an interview with him (that he posted on his site) where he said that a big part of Obamacare was to rescue the high-risk insurance pools which were going to fail. The interviewer asked that if the costs were backed back out and the pools subsequently failed what would then happen to those in the high… Read more »
Yes. Obamacare was an elaborate cross-subsidy scheme.
“Insurance”, by definition, means underwriting for frequency and severity of the risk to be insured. Subsidy of fat bastards with poor health is not insurance. Of course, the politics of all these subsidies require the use of the term “insurance”.
Your comment touches on a point that I sometimes make about a libertarian or “personal responsibility”-based society: most people are unwilling to watch the unfit and unlucky die in the street, but that is what will happen if we commit to a “personal responsibility” society. As long as we remain an affluent society, I guess that even most of the people who agree with the “I’m not going to pay for the healthcare of smokers and fatties” would be unable to endure the consequences of their intellectual commitments. Maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t think so. Will most white people… Read more »
As ever, we’d be more likely to support a health safety net in an overwhelmingly white society than in one where close to half the people would laugh at us and our kind as we lay dying in the streets.
It might work after a fashion, and I maintain is working today—after a fashion. Remember baseball hall of famer, Micky Mantle. He blew out his liver through alcoholism and was denied a transplant due to his “condition” (he was unable to show an appropriate length of sobriety). Well, his PR team went public and got him back on the list and he got his new liver. However, a complication it seems with such folk is liver cancer, which he got and died from within a few months, thereby proving the doctors correct in their removal of him from the transplant… Read more »
Something tells me that morbid fat bastardy tracks along certain demographic lines…
Again, don’t deny the aspect of genetic proclivity. Just outside the Phx area is an Indian reservation and a government clinic that treats these people. They have the largest dialysis center in the world and the highest obesity rates known outside of US Samoa. Basically, these people lived and prospered before the white man took over and placed them on reservations and fed them. Not going wobbly here, just pointing out a classic “experiment” right in our own back yard. Indeed, there was an academic who actually pointed out that everything wrong with these people was because of a mismatch… Read more »
Genetics are huge–so to speak. But so is common sense–which may also be genetic, but that’s another rabbit warren. Smart people are likely to eat healthier and more sensibly than are idiots. And, as well all know, intelligence breaks along racial (genetic) fault lines.
This is one area where “Gaze,” (a favorite term of the old New Left) actually applies, and Michel Foucault is actually worth reading. “The Birth of the Clinic” examines how the inherently imbalanced power dynamic between patient and doctor leads to some corrupt and finally sadistic dynamics. We always talk about there being a certain percentage of cops and prison guards who get into it not because it’s a steady job, but because it feeds something sadistic or authoritarian in their personality. We rarely think about it as regards doctors, but we obviously need to. That’s another reason they might… Read more »
I believe a lot of doctors who end up specializing in psychiatry suffer from some degree of mental illness and receive therapeutic value/feel better about themselves after seeing patients who are in even more mental anguish than themselves. There may be a sadistic component too in getting to order these poor saps around and try to mold their thinking.
For sure, I read about half of an abnormal psychology text book, had to stop, recognized too many things about myself .never considered becoming a shrink.
Should have because when I go to my doctor he ends up telling me about all of his problems and I have to listen for free.
BTW Z colinoscopy can be useful, I got my lost car keys back, it was driving me crazy trying to remember where I had left em.
It is an axiom of “mental health care” that most of the people who go into social work, psychology and psychiatry do so to figure out how to heal themselves. As for the sadistic element, my guess is that it is almost statistically insignificant. Such folk would be far more inclined to visit any sadistic impulses upon white people generically rather than their own patients.
We all knew that college. All the psychology majors were nuts
Art imitates life? Sharon Stone plays the authoress in 1992’s fim “Basic Instinct.” Other than the famous glimpse of her nether regions, more relevant to the plot line is that she apparently acts out the killings she writes about in her novels. At one point in the movie, it’s revealed that she has a master degree in psychology.
I have had a number of friends/acquaintances over the years who have become doctors/nurses/etc. Not a single one of them did it because of some feelings of wanting to help people. Every single one of them chose their professions because it paid well, the hours and lifestyle were acceptable to them, and it wasn’t especially difficult. I am the same. I chose the lab because of the pay, I didn’t have to deal with patients, and it isn’t very difficult (for a reasonably intelligent person). As I like to say, ‘there are much harder ways to make less money.’ In… Read more »
You were trying to remember the name of that scan that your vet does:
Cat scan.
(BA DUM TSSS)
Your currish* sense of wit will dog you for the rest of your days 🙂
*Yep, it’s a word.
Gonna do a bit of an effort-post here, but before I get to that, a couple quick points: I think when you finally get away from Lagos (hopefully to a more rural area) you’ll find that in smaller, less vibrant towns that the system does actually work much better. As a rule, the farther away you get from diversity, the better the system works. Kinda true for life in general, eh? Second, for what you’re spending on premiums vs. your actual healthcare costs, you might want to consider a “concierge” medical plan. Basically, no insurance, cash only. It’s much, much… Read more »
Concierge is growing here. I see it much like “charter schools” vs public. It a consumer choice which threatens the monopoly.
Free, but poor, health care is just fooling yourself—and could be deadly as in waiting for 6 weeks to see a specialist only for him to tell you your stage 3 cancer is now stage 4. In an era of post Covid vaccine super rapid cancers, this seems suboptimal.
That’s a dire example to be sure. But routine care often has very long waiting times. I read a lot of UK press and their National Health Service is all but seized up. Months or years waiting times are common. Even here in the US, sometimes an appointment even with an existing office may be a month or two out. Problem: what about urgent needs? Well for the there’s the ER or urgent care. Another problem: as already noted, much of our low-value population gets their care at the ER, too. I realize they have some senses of priority, but… Read more »
I agree. I’ve been the recipient of some fantastic health care not afforded the hoi polloi (daughter works in the field). I want everyone to have that advantage *if* possible, not just our “betters”. Since we, as a society, can’t afford such for everyone, then I’d at least like to be able to use my own resources to buy health care if I decide to. It seems every attempt at a national health care system attempts to suppress free choice in some attempt to mask its inherent mediocrity. Remember Obama Care: “You can keep your plan if you like it”,… Read more »
That’s of moderate interest, as I’ve been a subsidized (Obamacare) user since it began. Although I only know the rough outlines, yes the problem with the “Affordable Care Act” was that it forced changes that, while they broaded the availability of insurance, it drove up costs. Enough so, that at times, the State Exchanges (marketplaces) had trouble finding insurers willing to sell policies. How they work these bugs out, I don’t know. I can only speak from my state (FL) experiene: it’s my understanding that any resident can buy a policy on the Marketplace, although they were set up to… Read more »
Ben, I only can relate to my situation. I had complete coverage under State plan through the university. When Obamacare came about, the plan cost rose. Why? It was the best of offerings for State employees (no small number) and had been for years. The reason, Obamacare folk decided the plan did not cover what it wanted. Mostly social things that were on the Dem agenda. They wrote a minimal plan specification accordingly—not to the needs of folk, but to the needs of their agenda. Further they required *all* plans to include such. Thereby masking the ruse. Finally, I’ve repeatedly… Read more »
” Even here in the US”.
The US as a benchmark for excellence.
LMAO.
From what I have heard and read, the reason for the constant repetition of questions is for the benefit of the medical workers. These dunces need that done to help prevent grabbing the wrong information and treating you for the wrong thing. I think the number of deaths in the U.S. attributed to medical errors is likely exaggerated, but still significant.
“I think the number of deaths in the U.S. attributed to medical errors is likely exaggerated, but still significant.”
I’m not so sure of that. I see doctors do amazingly stupid things every day. When you consider the extreme lengths that doctors and nurses (especially nurses) go through to avoid any and all responsibility for any mistakes they make, I’d say that number is probably low.
These are truly bad times to be a hypochondriac
Is that right though, Marko? There seems to be an Rx for everything, including a bent wiener.
But I take your point, if you want an actual appointment. So maybe it’s “worst of times, best of times” for them?
“Peyronie’s Disease.” I remembered that from memory. Even the spelling. Fortunately I don’t suffer from it. But still it’s exasperating that I can instantly recall such an irrelevant datum, yet cannot recall the name of the person I met five minutes ago. (Wish I were joking.) 😀
Like everything we can look to Britain and Canada for a glimpse into the next phase of decay. Ultimately, it will probably be South African levels of bad. Our task is to continue with a demographic separation. We have to give ourselves some chance of getting treatment by our own folk. That may be impossible given the race based Tammany Hall that they will turn medical services into. But, we have to try. I also think we have to get rid of the ideas of freedom and voluntary interaction. They control the system. We need to accept reality and get… Read more »
P.S. There is not a trace of caring in Medical Care. We need to speak of it without using the term care. Medical Service.
If you want to know how the system feels about you, look no further than Carol Baker: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyXuPwsLGWI&pp=ygUmY2Fyb2wgYmFrZXIgZ2V0IHJpZCBvZiB3aGl0ZSBhbWVyaWNhbnM%3D
I watched a minute of the video and read some comments. She seems to be eligable for citizenship in a certain Middle East country. She’s apparently too stupid to realize that the people getting rid of the whites will see her as white too. Then she’ll be all fellow white wanting our protection. We need to keep these goblins in mind when things deteriorate to the terminal phase.
I did a bit of searching for how she fares in the eligibility test. She certainly scores high on the misanthropy part.
It is interesting to see Google searches. I found this Fact Check of whether or not Carol Baker said, “get rid of all white Americans.” It concluded that she did not say it, even though she clearly says it in the video.
https://infotagion.com/factcheck-did-the-cdc-chair-say-she-wants-to-get-rid-of-white-people/
I’m waiting for Google to ban the offensive, non-inclusive term, “concierge care”.
US is worse than the UK in most things. Wokeism, social metrics,state-mandated paedo crap, mutilation of kids..
I fear England becoming like the US.
Honestly “healthcare” is evil. What we need is for Nature to come back and for the weak and old to die off.
As far as I’m concerned, there is no greater evil than letting the undeserving live beyond their time. Physicians (falsely labelled as “doctors”, a term only appropriate for scholars) are pure evil incarnate.
The best thing that can happen is that the “healthcare” system collapses completely and with that weaklings die off.
My recent experience shows the stark changes in the American healthcare system over 30 years. Back in 1995, when I was 15, I broke my femur at the neck. The way it broke damaged the blood supply to my hip joint, which caused necrosis. This is the same exact issue Bo Jackson had when he dislocated his hip/femur and ended his football career, necessitating a hip replacement. As a teenager I was too young for a hip replacement, so they decided to do a flexion osteotomy, where they re-break the femur, rotate the head, and also put a bone graft… Read more »
Several years ago, I had surgery done. Fortunately, I had 1-on-1 time with my surgeon, but I too was given prescriptions for heavy duty painkillers for post-op.
Anyway, the pain was never that bad and it made me wonder what the point of my prescription pain killers was except to waste money. I also wondered if perhaps some people were simply so weak they couldn’t handle the slightest amount of discomfort or pain.
So many weaklings abound nowadays.
“If you want to understand fascist economics, spend some time in the American healthcare system.” If you can, watch the 1971 film, “The Hospital”, directed by Arthur Hiller. That more or less describes the whole US “healthcare” system in its venality and indifference to patients. The system is “private” only in the sense that if you don’t have insurance (and often even if you do), you’re liable for payment for medical services. The system is a network of rackets. Medical expenses are the leading cause of bankruptcy in the USA. The “healthcare” system is the most important reason — though… Read more »
Just a quick bit of statistics regarding medical testing (this is accurate and backed up by multiple studies): in the US, over 70% of all outpatient medical laboratory testing is completely unnecessary. This is not saying that the tests were negative/normal. This is testing that met no relevant criteria for even being ordered. In the inpatient setting (admitted to hospital), the number is 90%! We see it every day. Inpatients with no suspicion of changes, getting CBCs and chemistry done every single day. They’re not big expenses, but in the tradition of successful money laundering schemes, lots and lots of… Read more »
Thank you for sharing your check-up experience. You apparently have “high cholesterol” and were recommended a statin, which you refused (wisely, in my opinion.) Permit me to pontificate on this specific issue and some closely related, such as diet. In the past year I’ve deeply researched these and I feel I know a few things about it. The official dogma, of course, holds that “high cholesterol” is a primary driver of cardiovascular disease (CVD) and that it must be lowered. But here’s a question: What if this dogma is mostly, perhaps completely wrong? Here is not the place to recount… Read more »
Lipitor was approved based on a study showing an increased risk of heart disease in 1% of males averaging 300 pounds. One percent is statistically insignificant.
The cholesterol screening racket is a racket.
The three building blocks of the body are cholesterol, natural fats, and protein.
(The brain is 70% cholesterol, essential as are fats for children’s developing brains.)
In summa: they want us fat, stupid, weak, and sickly.
Ben, what you touch upon is the concept of “relative risk” vs “absolute risk”. So perhaps a “highish” blood pressure has an absolute risk of 1 in 10k of stroke or heart attack. You take your prescribed “drug” and now you risk is reduced by half—1 in 20k—and of course you have whatever side effects risk. Is this worth it? Big Pharma love to advertise their new drug is twice as effective as their competitors old drug, but begs the issue of absolute risk. The other ploy is to get medical boards to lower their definitions of “normal”. Within the… Read more »
As of about 10 years ago, the American Heart Association recommendation is for everyone over 40 years old, regardless of lipid levels or overall health, to be on statins. Yes that’s right, EVERYONE.
All very true. I’ve learned a lot of this, just in the past year. I even started a small site mostly with essays ripping off ideas from others (but admitting it) 😀
I do claim a bit of originality with this one, at least in the repackaging. I took one drug study and attempted to show the several varying (and apparently factual) conclusions one could draw from the data in the study. Some very flattering to those who promote such treatments, but others, not so much.
https://satansdoorknob.substack.com/p/different-views-of-the-truth-drug
CVD isn’t that hard to control. Get your LDL level below 70 mg/dL. Current AHA recommendations are 100 mg/dL or lower, which isn’t low enough.
Populations where people have LDL levels below 70 mg/dL never get CVD. It’s that simple.
Everything else is just nonsense.
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